Aztek No Prisoners: Crusader Kings II – Sunset Invasion

Share this:

Here’s the inevitable pagan DLC for Crusader Kings II then. I’ll just take a quick look at the feature list: human sacrifice…Mesoamerican Menace? That second part doesn’t with my preconceived notions as to what this next expansion includes. “Brings the savage, blood drenched Aztec civilization to European shores, determined to wreak carnage on its inhabitants”? This might not be the pagan DLC I expected after all, but rather a fantastical alternate history upheaval of the sort never before seen in a Paradox grand strategy game. Set your eyes below the break for more info on what the Aztec invasion might mean for the ever-warring folks of the Old World.

The Aztecs will be a mid-to-late game force, invading from the West and no doubt making Spain even more of a mess than it usually is by that point. Rather than bringing potatoes and tobacco, the Aztecs are bringing blood-hungry gods and a “terrible disease”, which is nice of them. Essentially, they’re not that much different to the Europeans but in this retelling of the tale, they hopped on their boats first. Probably because they weren’t interbreeding and dropping their own children out of windows quite as often. That sort of thing tends to curtail the launch of a bold Age of Discovery. Crusader Kings II’s events tend to be more akin to an Age of Dysentery than Discovery.

It does seem like the first expansion that I won’t necessarily want to use every time I start a new game, although that’s not to say I won’t be trying it out straight away when it’s released on November 15th. It’d be a far larger undertaking, but I do wish this had been used as a mad springboard to add America to the CKII map. I always want more, greedy little sod that I am. Sunset Invasion will be $4.99 and I’ll see about revisiting the game sometime around the end of the month and examining how significantly months of patching and expanding have changed it.

I’ve been playing around with the Legacy of Rome expansion recently – factions are brilliant, bulking out plots and intrigue and giving lowly rulers far more to do and the greater powers far more to keep the thousand eyes of their spymasters trained on. I haven’t been continuing the diary due to a combination of distractions and a lost save file. So, there’s a reminder of one of my many failures. Go me!

But seriously, is this massively dissimilar to the fairly standard Mongol Invasion or Barbarian Invasion DLCs? At least the ‘barbarians’ are coming from another direction, and they’ve been reskinned as Aztecs (in the flayed skins of their sacrificial victims, in honour of Xipe Topec). At least it’s a fairly original take on what had to be an inevitable DLC item.

In real life, the Mesoamericans did give the Spanish a terrible disease to take home with them (and were indirectly responsible for the existence of the Church of England) but it was the Europeans who brought smallpox to the Americas, a far more destructive disease which did more to defeat the pre-existing societies there than horses and muskets did. In this DLC are the Aztecs bringing smallpox?

We were discussing this just last week. Seems there’s some new studies about how over 50% of the New World’s population may have been killed off by the diseases from the first European contacts.

I was just playing a Crusader Kings plus campaign as the Danes, and in 1309 the Bubonic Plague hit, and wiped out about 75% of my family dynasty. And dangerously concentrated power in the hands of the few surviving dukes.

The history of new colonisation of the continent does become, in my mind, infinitely more interesting, when considering that it basically took place in the post-apocalypse of the previous inhabitants.
New knowledge is fun. Cheers to forensic epidemiology!

I’m not terribly interested in this update myself. It’s a bit on the silly side for my tastes. Not to say I won’t eventually get it, but I have a feeling that much of the time I’ll have it turned off. I’d have preferred something involving Zheng He and his fleet of treasure ships if Paradox was going to try for a “what if” scenario in some new DLC.

Indeed, A Chinese invasion under Zheng He arriving the in the red sea would be ahistorical, but somewhat plausible. An Aztec invasion on the other hand is utterly nonsense. We are talking about a civilization which had never seen horses or any other type of decent draft animals, didn’t know about use the wheel and was using wooden swords and stone clubs for warfare. Even if they had managed to traverse the ocean the only way they could win against the europeans/muslims would be if the latter laughed themselfs to death.

While true, the idea that there was any sort of technological parity between the Aztecs and the Europeans is just revisionist garbage. The Europeans were easily a few THOUSAND years ahead of the Meso-American Civilizations. The Aztecs would have had a hard time dealing with Old Kingdom Egypt, much less a civilization that was figuring out gunpowder, the compass, and sanitation.

Yes there were a few areas where things were close, but hundreds and hundreds more where they were not.

Nonsense. The Mesoamerican cultures had advanced social systems, maths and literature, and construction and engineering. Obviously, they were lacking in other areas such as metallurgy and shipbuilding.

Anyway, who cares? It’s an alternative history scenario in a computer game. And it’s interesting for its complete inversion of the usual “Europeans go out and take someone else’s land” colonisation theme.

“It sounds to me like you’ve been getting your long-term view of other cultures from revisionist sources.”

Every conclusion other than “We won because God was on our side” is revisionist of the original source material. They’re also more correct.

The study of history is a project of constant revision as new evidence is uncovered and new theories are proposed. Sometimes the revisions are accepted by the larger community; sometimes they aren’t. It all depends on how well it can be evidenced and argued. The current historical view of pre-contact Mesoamerican cultures is itself revisionist of past views; it’s been accepted thanks to the wealth of evidence to back it up.

Don’t throw “revisionist” around like a dirty word. If it weren’t for revisionists, we’d still refer to the Aztecs solely as filthy cannibal barbarians who were lucky enough to be graced with the word of God by their superior Spanish conquerors.

“A few thousand years ahead? A simple Wikipedia search would show that this is certainly not the case.”

Have you studied Egyptian, Elamite, or say Hittite history at all? Either one of those ancient cultures was more than a match for the Aztecs technologically speaking.

“Nonsense. The Mesoamerican cultures had advanced social systems, maths and literature, and construction and engineering. Obviously, they were lacking in other areas such as metallurgy and shipbuilding.”

Yes advanced compared to cave people, not advanced compared to say China and Europe in 1000bc, much less Europe in 1400 AD. It is all well and good to be excited about their technological capabilities, but they didn’t even have the barest fragment of the material or cultural know how of the Eurasian cultures.

“Anyway, who cares? It’s an alternative history scenario in a computer game. And it’s interesting for its complete inversion of the usual “Europeans go out and take someone else’s land” colonisation theme.”

I don’t mind the setting for a video game at all, I was just trying to point out that it is indeed insane. A sub Saharan African invasion of China is a lot more plausible, and well….

“Every conclusion other than “We won because God was on our side” is revisionist of the original source material. They’re also more correct.”

Fair enough, but revisionist history also has a more technical meaning (at least in American historical circles) referring specifically to the worst excesses of otherwise laudable trend in the 60s-00s where people reread history through the eyes of the losers. This CERTAINLY was a good thing and necessary, but it was taken to rather farcical extremes.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love me a “People’s History of the United States”, or a “Lies Your Teacher Taught You” but to pretend the Native Cultures of America were remotely on par with the Europeans is to just vastly misunderstand the historical record. Technologically speaking the Aztecs don’t compare favorably to the Middle Kingdom Egyptians. That is 3000 years prior to them…

“Yes advanced compared to cave people, not advanced compared to say China and Europe in 1000bc … they didn’t even have the barest fragment of the material or cultural know how of the Eurasian cultures.”

I’m not aware of any European cultures in 1000 BC making calendars in base 20 (granted, that was the Maya rather than the Aztecs, but still) or building cities of over 200,000 people.

Joshua, thank you for expounding on your original post. I can appreciate what you’re getting at, but claiming that the Aztecs were thousands of years behind the rest of the world is still just utterly inaccurate. Warfare and exploration aren’t they only watermarks when deciding how advanced any particular culture is.

As a former American schoolboy, I was exposed to so much revisionist history that I remained ignorant of real historical events for a very long time. I didn’t know that Columbus was such a prick that he would chop off the hands and feet of runaway Indian captives. Our teachers never taught us that the United States actually attempted to invade Russia during the early 20th century. They never bothered to mention that the Allies gave Nazi and Japanese scientists shelter after WWII.

Any mention of historical revisionism gets my gander up, so I tend to be a bit touchy on the subject.

I agree completely that the history American kids are taught are a ridiculous fairy tale obscuring what was essentially a genocide of exactly the kind we love to chastise the Turks/Nazis about.

But I also think that in celebration of the Native Americans interesting/unique/different culture people tend to go more than a little overboard with their comparative fitness versus Europe. I mean look at something like the water-wheel, so so powerful, unknown in most of the rest of the world for anything other than grain grinding.

Europeans were using it to pump out the lower levels of mines. It is just a world of difference.

FWIW you don’t have to be very far advanced technologically in warfare to wipe out another civilization. In fact, the Aztec advances is city-building and statecraft made them easier targets. It’s always easier to conquer than to build, or Alexander would not be “the Great.”

Blame Crusader Kings for focusing on Europe. Ming China, Vijayanagara or any of the other areas in contact with the silk route would crush them just as hard. The meso-American societies were at this point seriously lagging behind Eurasia in warfare technology, partly because of their isolation, partly because of the different natural resources available.

Apparently you are right about the wheel, they did know about it but only used it for children’s toys. The reason I brought it up is that carts and draft animals are critical for moving around supplies in warfare.

“knowing about something” and having it an effective part of your technological mileu are two different things. The wheel most definitely would have been extremely useful for moving goods in Meso America. And they didn’t use it. If you want to be generous we can say they hadn’t invented the “cart” yet. Do you feel better now?

It has nothing to do with Eurocentrism. I love world history and have studied as many cultures as I can. IN fact the Eruocentrism is repackaging actual Meso-American history (as was done in the 60s-00s) because of intellectual trends in the Western world.

Guns Germs and Steel is the apotheosis of this, and while it makes a lot of interesting and valid points, is also kind of a joke. The main thesis is frankly ridiculous.

If you live in a tropical/semi-tropical environment with no beasts of burden, carts don’t tend to be all that useful. The Mexica absolutely used wheels – for toys. Had they been useful elsewhere, they certainly would have used them.

That region is full of hills, mountains, swamps, and rivers. It is not the dry and dusty type of terrain that so many people traditionally associate with Mexico. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the Aztecs did not use the wheel because the terrain they lived in prohibited it from being fully effective. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that any historian who claims that the Aztecs were “ignorant” of the wheel’s primary use (as human transport) is straining credibility. The Aztecs obviously knew the physics behind the wheel.

Of course, maybe that whole “operable wheels on mobile toys” thing was just a freak occurrence.

I should mention that the Aztec peoples used aqueducts, one of those fancy “high-level” technologies that savages are apparently incapable of creating.

Mayans built wonderful straight and level roads between all their cities, which would’ve been perfect for carts. Pulling a cart even without animals would’ve allowed them to carry greater loads more easily.

I’m happy to give the Meso-American cultures credit where credit is due. They had some positively brilliant engineers and mathematicians, and were quite advanced on a number of fronts. However, warfare and seafaring were not among them. In a military conflict with equivalent-era Europeans (or worse, Muslims or Chinese) they’d have been utterly crushed. Of course, that wouldn’t matter, because they simply weren’t capable of navigating the Atlantic (any more than the Europeans of that era were) so as to have the situation arise in the first place.

At what point does it cease to be alternate history and become pure fantasy? If you change the military capabilities, sea-faring capabilities, economic capabilities, and overall behavioral tendencies of a culture, are we even still talking about that same culture? An Aztec nation capable of invading Europe in this era isn’t recognizably Aztec in any meaningful way, it might as well be an alien invasion DLC.

The instant an all-seeing player starts a game it becomes a fantasy anyway. As if a Castillian prince would choose a bride by bringing up a spreadsheet of all the eligible women in Europe, sorted by their spying skill.

Anyway, if people don’t want this in their game, the solution is screamingly obvious.

The problem is that “alternate history” isn’t enough – you’d also need alternate geography, geology, climatology and local biology to make it happen (as the climate, natural resources, plants and domesticated animals were also all wrong for creating an armed force that could take on Europe).

You know, I had been sort of bemused but indifferent to this DLC. It’s too silly to be of interest, and consequently the first major DLC for a Paradox game I greatly enjoy that I’ll be passing on.

But dammit, pointing out that it could have been a Chinese invasion (vastly more credible, if still a bit off the wall) just ticks me off. That would have been so much more interesting, what a missed opportunity!

Stone clubs in terrain completely unfamiliar to the Aztecs versus Spanish knights, among others…
Nope, I’m not seeing how the Aztecs would actually stand any sort of chance, mathematical advancements, wheels, etc. or not.

I haven’t seen anything so far that is inconsistent with the historical Aztecs.

Nor, for that matter, can I see anything particularly offensive about portraying Native American cultures (or any other) as militarily capable. After all, like most other cultures, most of them did wage war to some extent when necessary or advantageous, and frequently actually did so very well. Why is it wrong to give them some recognition for that, just like we recognise e.g. Scottish highlanders or English longbowmen? (Or maybe that’s offensive as well.)

And European cultures were nicer than the Aztecs? Cutting out hearts is pretty bad, I’d agree, but worse than burning people alive? Than the Inquisition? Debatable. Europe was more advanced technologically and culturally, but not morally.

Calling a culture “savage and bloodthirsty” isn’t calling it “militarily capable”. Because, you know, that’s *not* what those words mean. Calling Native Americans savage, specifically, is a problem. Or are you ignorant of the history of racism referring to native people as savages by Europeans?

I have not said that Europeans were in any way “nicer”, or that the Aztecs were “savages”. Now, Aztecs frequently cut out the hearts of their defeated enemies, just like late medieval/early modern Europeans burnt heretics, the Vikings looted defenceless monasteries, the Romans wiped out Carthage, or any of the other unpleasant things that have happened throughout history.

The point I’m trying to make is that this is not a popularity contest, and I don’t think it’s a useful or very enlightening discussion to try to evaluate or compare the moral worth of different cultures. As an historian, I do not want to sit in some kind of self-appointed judgement over any of these societies or of which are more or less “savage” than the others; rather, I want to present an accurate picture (or as much so as possible) of their cultures and beliefs, and more importantly understand the reasons why they happened.

For instance, it’s obvious that the Aztecs did not carry out human sacrifices because they were inherently more bloodthirsty than any other people – they had their reasons for doing it, which they themselves probably considered perfectly rational, and which were rooted in their religious, political and social systems. We need to recognise that, and we need to ask questions about them, because otherwise we won’t come to a full understanding of Aztec society, and that would be doing them a very great disservice. (And that goes equally for any other culture and society as well, of course.)

I’m no Paradox grognard, but I must agree that this is really, really, REALLY dumb. The premise is patently ridiculous for any game that purports to have even a smattering of historical accuracy, but to crop up in a Paradox grand strategy game? Words fail me for an analogy surreal enough to point out the utter incongruity. I imagine the Plaza forums are exploding with frustration and disappointment.

Not that interested but I am interested in some kind of alternative earth DLC, maybe to with countries myths\Gods (with God say from Odin or or add things like vampirism and witches etc) or Arthurian legends or even Warhammer like DLC\Expansions. However they need to do two separate types historical and fantasy. This sits awkwardly in between kind of.

None of which precludes Paradox from adopting the more successful mods, helping polish them up and putting them up for sale, of course — they’ve already done that with several teams from the Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron modding communities.

It’s neither of those. And the day I can’t remember Age of Empires II is the day they can stick me in a nursing home.
I was thinking of Aztec Wars, which MobyGames tells me is from 1999 and, reading the description, was completely mental.

Paradox have been doing really well by me lately, so I’ll forgive the occasional terribly stupid idea. I prefer these games to be closer to historical, while retaining their sandbox quality. Aztec invasions are WAY off that branch and in the realm of the goofy and fantastical. Might as well be Neanderthals or aliens.

It’s a touch… icky, too, isn’t it? The Aztecs, a people wiped out by the Europeans’ diseases more than anything, landing in Europe and bringing diseases with them? That feels rather gross to me.

Think about it for a moment. Think of another instance of genocide by one subset of people over another. Now think of whether “turning the tables” in the instance I’m sure you’re thinking of, since it’s the most obvious, would be a good idea. If that victim were set up in the opposite position to perform the genocide in the same way.

Think of whether a “turning the tables” DLC would be ok in Hearts of Iron III.

Let’s reply to Fungus instead – a surprisingly large proportion of the modern European diet consists of foods cultivated by native American cultures like the Aztecs. It’s one of the things Rich Hall mentioned in his excellent “inventing the Indian” show – which is still available on iplayer for another two days, go watch it.

I assume you were replying to me. If so, see my next statement after that above. Europe had its own bloodthirsty savagery during the game’s era, arguably worse than that of the Aztecs, and certainly far more so in the time since. Now compare the language of the Byzantine DLC announcement to this one. And remember the historical depiction of native peoples.

This portrayal of Nahuatl speaking peoples is massively, incredibly, ridiculously distasteful and offensive. All I can figure is that it doesn’t compute the same way in Europe, where there aren’t a lot of people who are the direct descendants of the people being portrayed as bloodthirsty savages. Maybe, coming from the US, where we have a national history of genocide on Native American peoples justified by the myth of the bloodthirsty savage that this is based upon, I’m a bit oversensitive to this sort of thing. But wow. Just wow. This blows my mind.

I couldn’t agree more, and I wonder how much effort Paradox will make to portray any Mesoamerican forces sensitively or with depth. But then, much the same happens with Mongols or would happen with a proposed Chinese invasion force. Any kind of ‘barbarian invasion’ is of course othering.

Unless of course, it’s European colonisation, which in games (as in much of our media) is routinely presented from a European perspective and with little understanding or insight into it’s genocidal effects. I would argue that Crusader Kings actually gives a fairly interesting perspective on this, focused as it is on what some academics have seen as the first European experiments with colonialism; the Crusades. I wonder if someone with more knowledge, could say how successful Paradox has been at portraying non-Catholic Christian perspectives in the game, it does at least offer narratives beyond the crusading states.
Whilst I’m cynical about how much depth will be given any Mesoamerican culture in what seems to be aimed as a fun and light hearted expansion, I’m at least interested that it’s not just another expansion into fresh territory by European Christian states.

As a Muslim, I was thoroughly impressed with what they did with sword of Islam… they accurately portray the authentic Muslim practices and beliefs, all the while maintaining the evil-backstabbery of the ruling class of the era.

I was so exciting playing as Sheikh of Bahrain and going for Hajj and fasting for Ramadhan. Even the terminology was spot on when it got into events and stuff

In short, it is probably the best portrayal of Muslims i’ve seen in any game. It’s not the typical “THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS WITH BEARDS,”

What throws me about the complaints that this expansion is too unrealistic is that CK2 already provides ample opportunities for ahistorical situations that could have never possibly come about. From purchasing all the DLC, Ionecan use the ruler creator to make an earl in Ireland a Greek Shi’a Muslim, and then have a succession of heirs named Charizard, Squirtle, and Vegeta unite all of Ireland and the British Isles under a Shi’a Irish Empire. Meanwhile, the emperor of Byzantine can end the great schism and turn Catholicism into a heresy. I’d say these situations were all about as likely to occur in the time period as the Aztec’s invading Europe.

If they added an alien invasion CK2 would only be slightly less unrealistic than it is now. Which isn’t a bad thing; I’ve always found the most fun in CK2 comes from the ahistorical situations that come about.